Best way to copy all files to new second hard drive.

I have installed and formatted a new hard drive. I want to copy all the contents of the old drive, including the OS (Windwos XP) to the new one and make it bootable and primary. Windows has assigned drive letter "F" and "G" to the two partitions on the new drive. My old drive is "C" and two DVD drives are "D" and "E". Should I change the drive letters?
I have Partition Magic 8.0 installed, but when investigating using it to copy the partition it tells me the new drive may not be bootable. That would be bad. I also need to do this right away because of an impending project.

NB This applies to Windows95/98/ME/2000 & XP
IMPORTANT: Make sure you are licensed to produce imaged copies of your version of windows.

1. Set the Master PC\Laptop up from its manufacturers rescue disks or the copy of windows that you wish to use.
2. Ensure that you apply all the latest service packs for your version of windows. Go to http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp to see if you need to install anything.
3. Install and configure all the applications you would like on the image, and remember applications need service-packing too for MS Office updates go to http://office.microsoft.com/officeupdate/default.aspx?CTT=6&Origin=EC790020111033 and run the office update wizard. Don’t forget things like Adobe Acrobat reader and WinZip (This is a licensed product so ensure you have the rights to do this)
4. If you have not serviced packed you internet explorer (in step 2) do this now.
5. If you use a proxy server and/or wish to have ALL the imaged PC’s preconfigured to use this do the following, Open a MMC Console (Start - Run - MMC - [ENTER]) Add the group policy snap in. Configure the home page as http://yourhomepage then configure the proxy as Your Proxy IP address (Look in User Configuration\Windows Settings\Internet Explorer Maint)
6. To display a Login message on every machine Go to the following registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and in the following keys paste in this text...

LegalNoticeCaption

<Title of the Message>

LegalNoticeText

<Text of the Message>

7. If you use Host Files on your network copy them to the following locations

Win9x c:\windows
Win2k c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc

8. If you use Novell Install and configure the Novell Client (WARNING – If using Zenworks for desktops and automatic workstation input consider NOT putting the Novell Client on your Image)
9. If you wish you can copy the windows setup files to the hard drive – though this will obviously make the image a LOT larger.
10. Defragment the hard drive then empty the recycle bin. (Unless you want to clone your rubbish: 0)
11. Now if you meet any of the following criteria go to step 18.

You are imaging Windows 95/98/ME
You are imaging Windows 2000 or Windows XP that will NOT be on a network (i.e., it’s a standalone or your home PC)

12. If you reading this bit your imaging a windows 2000 or XP machine and you rolling you image out onto a network, proceed to step 13.
13. Download the latest version of sysprep for your operating system

14. You now need to create a directory called c:\sysprep and do the following

Windows 2000
Extract the file you downloaded to the c:\sysprep directory.
Look on the windows 2000 CD for the following d:\support\tools and there should be a file there called “deploy.cab”, Extract this to your C: \ sysprep directory.
Copy all the files from C: \sysprep\tools\ to the C: \ sysprep folder click YES when you are asked to overwrite the originals.

Windows XP
Extract the file you downloaded earlier to the C: \sysprep directory.

15. In your sysprep directory you will now have a program called setupmgr double click it to run it, answer all the questions and it will create another file that will hold the answers to all the questions windows usually asks you when you install it. REMEMBER to tell it you ate IMAGING or it won’t work.
16. Close all your open windows and click Start > Run > c:\sysprep\sysprep.exe -pnp The machine will then give you a warning message and close down, DON’T power it back up unless you want to test it (note if you do and your windows 2000 you’ll have to carry out all from step 13 again)
17. Before cloning your Hard Drive, ensure you have another hard drive (That Big enough to hold the image fitted to the machine being ghosted. (You cannot ghost to the same Hard Drive!) – NEWER versions of ghost can) this procedure was tested with v6.5 and v7.0
18. Arm yourself with a bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com (Ensure it had RAMDRIVE on it and it works!) And a copy of Ghost.exe from Symantec
19. Boot with your bootdisk
20. Type ghost then return. (This will create one big image if you want to split the image up, to fit on CDROM’s type “ghost.exe -split=600 –auto”)
21. At the welcome screen press enter to clear the message.
22. Using the Cursor Keys select Local, Disk, To Image then return.
23. At the select local source press enter
24. At the file name to copy to screen, Use the Tab Keys to navigate to the image location your second Hard Drive.
25. Press Tab to navigate to the filename box and give the image a name (i.e. image01)
26. Keep pressing the Tab Key till Save is highlighted then press return.
27. At the Compress Image screen Tab to "High" Then press return.
28. At the proceed screen Tab to "Yes" then press return.
29. When it is completed it should say, "Dump completed successfully"
30. If you’re deploying from CDROM you can now burn the image “portions” to CDROM. Ensure the first disk is bootable and has a copy of ghost on it to restore the image to a new computer.

* denotes PC magazines pick as the best in its class
==================================

Drive Imaging
Reviews By PC Magazine June 17, 2003
At some point, you may need to preserve your entire hard drive exactly as it is—byte for byte. Drive-imaging software does exactly that: It saves a snapshot of every bit of information on a drive or partition so you can restore the system to an identical state. But beware: The product you choose may not work well with your CD-RW drive. We ran into some compatibility problems during testing. Fortunately, each of the programs in this roundup has a money-back guarantee. So be sure to give the software a test run as soon as you buy it.

Drive Imagehttp://www.symantec.com/driveimage/
PowerQuest has clearly put a lot of effort into making Drive Image 2002 easy to use. When you launch the program, a straightforward wizard walks you through the process of either creating a backup of your hard drive or restoring it, detailing each step of the process.

Norton Ghost http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/
The most impressive aspects of Norton Ghost 2003 are its advanced features and versatile functions in a business setting, where you might need to set up hundreds of systems using the same hard drive image.

*Acronis TrueImagehttp://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/
Acronis TrueImage 6.0 has an interface that makes it an ideal solution for users with basic drive-imaging needs and a desire for simplicity. The wizard for backing up a hard drive is extremely intuitive; it lets you back up partitions of a hard drive to another partition on the same drive or to optical media. Unlike Drive Image and Ghost, TrueImage does not require exclusive access to the file system to make a copy of all files. And whereas other programs require you to reboot into DOS mode to complete most operations, TrueImage needs to leave Windows only to restore a hard drive.

>>>using it to copy the partition it tells me the new drive may not be bootable

Actually that is not as bad as it seems. I know PM does have in its arsenal the ability to copy one partition over to another. I have not used this option so I do not know of its affectiveness. However if it does not boot then do this.

Boot from the XP CD, get into the Recovery Console, and type the following commands:

To start the Windows Recovery Console, use any of the following methods:
Start your computer by using the Windows Setup floppy disks or the Windows CD-ROM. At the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press F10 or press R to repair, and start the Windows Recovery Console.